Microvision's ultra-small projector for cell phones

Next week Microvision will show off its ultra-small full-color projector at CES 2007 in Las Vegas. This device is small enough to be embedded in devices like cell phones or PDAs. If the image quality is good enough this could become a nice gadget to integrate into players like the iPod video or expensive mobile phones. Most people don't really want to watch long videos on small phone or iPod screens but this projector could be the solution for this problem.

Microvision promises the images generated by their display will be extremely sharp and vivid whether being projected to view an image the size of a laptop screen or further away to view an image the size of a big screen plasma TV.

"Small, two inch displays that are common to mobile devices such as cell phones are barriers to growth of exciting mobility markets, because they limit the user viewing experience," said Alexander Tokman, President and CEO of Microvision. "Our projection display solution is expected to eliminate this bottleneck, benefiting consumers, mobile operators, content providers, and consumer electronics OEMs. As our display is further optimized for high volume manufacturing, OEMs are expected to create a new generation of mobile devices with powerful projection display capabilities.

Content providers should benefit by expanding their portfolio of visually rich content and application services. Mobile operators should benefit from an enhanced user experience by increased adoption of mobile data services such as mobile TV. Consumers should be able to obtain a radically new viewing experience by projecting photos, videos, movies, and TV from personal mobile devices onto virtually any surface for entertaining and sharing with friends and family -- whenever, wherever."

Currently measuring a slim 8 mm this extremely small display package, about the size of a "thin mint" chocolate candy or the generation two iPod shuffle, has been dramatically miniaturized to 1/10 the size of the company's original prototype shown in June 2006 at the Society for Information Display.

Microvision and its high volume manufacturing partners will continue to develop this exciting technology into products that are expected to meet very aggressive market requirements for size, power, cost, and performance.